Postmortem
by Sophia Hawkins
Summary: Oneshot. Kelly Severide pulled back and nodded, feeling all the color drain out of his face, "Yeah, that's him." The medical examiner replaced the sheet over the body on the table. "How did he die?" Kelly wanted to know.


Postmortem

Casey had a construction job lined up for the day and was getting ready to leave. Kelly sauntered into the kitchen with a little less enthusiasm than usual.

"Hey," Casey glanced over his shoulder, "just about missed you."

"Where're you going?" Kelly asked, his voice sounding less than fully invested in the answer.

"Got a job I'm starting today, I can use an extra set of hands if you're interested."

"Ah...no thanks, if that's okay. I've got some stuff I need to take care of," Severide answered.

Casey nodded, "No problem, maybe next time."

"Yeah...maybe," Kelly said.

Casey looked over at him, "You okay, Kelly?"

Kelly's eyes were wide open but he looked like he was half asleep, and he sounded like it too, "Yeah, just...tired."

"I hear that," Casey said, "I know work's always feast or famine but I wouldn't mind a break now and then."

Kelly surprised Casey by wordlessly getting up against the Truck lieutenant and suddenly hugging him with no explanation. Not that Casey minded, any time he got a hug from his roommate instead of punched in the face was a good day for him, but the whole thing just seemed so strange.

"You sure everything's okay?" Casey asked.

"Yeah...sorry," Kelly drew back and looked towards the floor.

"Are you feeling sick?" Casey inquired, "I can reschedule the job if something's wrong."

"No, no," Kelly shook his head, "everything's fine, you go and...I'll see you when you get home."

"Okay," Casey answered uncertainly, "if you're sure."

"Yeah," Kelly said, "I'm going to be out most of the morning, I've gotta take my car in for a tuneup."

"You say so," Casey replied as he grabbed his toolbox, "See you later."

"Yeah...bye," Kelly saw him out the door, closed it behind him, then slunk back against the wall and let his body sag down a few inches. He breathed in, and out, and had to work himself up to the task at hand. He wished he was going to be anywhere else than where he was going.

* * *

Kelly pulled back and nodded, feeling all the color drain out of his face. "Yeah, that's him."

The medical examiner replaced the sheet over the body on the table. "You were close?"

"Not really...not for a long time," Kelly said, trying to push the image he just saw from his mind. He swallowed hard, hoping he didn't throw up, "How did he die?"

"Official cause of death is blunt force trauma to the head, but we found something else during the autopsy."

Kelly wasn't sure he wanted to know. "What?"

"A tumor in the frontal lobe the size of a lemon."

To the 50-something gaunt, almost gray skinned man in the white coat working there who about resembled a corpse himself, it sounded like it was all routine, as if he was announcing the time of the day or the weather, but there was nothing routine about it to Severide.

Kelly blinked. "How long would he have had that?"

"There's no exact way to tell how fast a tumor can grow, but my guess, he'd had it for a few years."

"And nobody knew it?"

"If they did, nobody ever passed it along," the medical examiner told him. "All things considered, they probably figured there wasn't any point."

Kelly shrunk back towards the door, he couldn't believe it.

"Is it true that brain tumors can change people?"

"When they press on the frontal lobe they _can_ lead to drastic personality changes. You know the story about the Marine sniper at the bell tower shooting people in the 60s."

"Yeah," Kelly answered.

"What people don't remember is he also killed his mother and his wife first. Everybody figures a Marine goes postal, starts killing people, what's new? Turns out during his autopsy he had a brain tumor, now they're saying that before he killed everybody, he went to doctors begging for help because he knew something was wrong. Of course 50 years after the fact, who knows how much of it is true? But, it's not impossible, I can tell you that much."

"Do you think that's what happened here?" Kelly asked.

"I'm not familiar with the facts of the case," the man answered, "but it's possible. There was a second, smaller tumor in his pituitary gland, located right by the brain stem. Either one of these can affect personality change in someone, but both of them at the same time? Odds don't come much worse than that."

"How did he get two tumors?"

"Nobody will ever know that," the medical examiner said. "It could've been work-related, or just a bad luck of the draw in the gene pool, nobody knows for sure."

Kelly mulled all this new information over. "So if somebody found out and he got treated in time, this wouldn't have happened."

"Nobody can say that for certain either," the man told him. "Some doctors would've opted for surgery, others would've recommended shrinking the tumors through radiation...sometimes treatments work, sometimes they don't, it's possible that nothing would've changed."

Kelly looked at the sheet covered body and said to himself, "Or maybe everything."

* * *

Kelly wasn't home when Casey got back that night from his job. He didn't think much of it, and he wasn't too concerned when Kelly still hadn't come home when he was getting ready for bed. But he _was_ concerned when he got up the next morning and Kelly's bed hadn't been slept in and his car wasn't there. He got his phone to see if there had been any calls or texts, but there was nothing. Starting to worry, Casey was just starting to dial Kelly's number when he heard the Mustang pull up out front. He waited in the living room and after a couple minutes, the door opened and Kelly dragged himself in, looking half dead from exhaustion.

"Well, good morning," Casey said sarcastically.

"Good-_night_," Kelly tiredly grunted as he headed straight for his bedroom.

"What happened yesterday?" Casey asked.

"I d'no what you're talking about," Kelly walked past him and closed the door behind him.

"Kelly."

Casey followed after him and opened the door. Kelly had already crawled into bed and pulled the comforter up over his head.

"Kelly."

"G'way," a muffled response came from under the covers.

"Kelly," Casey persisted, "We have to be on-shift today."

"I'm 'na going," Kelly tossed back the covers so he could breathe, "I'm calling in sick."

Now Casey was really concerned. "What's wrong, Kelly?"

"Nothin's wrong, I'm just not going in today," he answered, never opening his eyes.

"Kelly-"

Casey was interrupted by the sound of somebody knocking on the front door. Reluctantly, he left the bedroom and went to see who it was.

And he was surprised by the sight of Tony and Capp standing on the stoop.

"What's going on?" Casey asked.

"Is Severide here?" Tony asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"Has he heard?"

"Heard what?" Casey was clueless.

"Hadley's dead," Capp answered.

Casey took a step back and felt his eyes bulge. "What?"

"It was in the paper this morning," Tony told him, "somebody beat him to death during a prison brawl the other day."

Casey took another step back and half whispered, "Oh my God."

"We tried calling but he didn't answer his phone," Tony said.

Casey took a minute to let this bombshell sink in, suddenly everything all fit. "I think he knows...I'll talk to him about it." He closed the door on them and returned to Severide's bedroom. "Kelly."

Now the Squad lieutenant was face down on the bed with one of the pillows pressed over his head.

"Go away," was the muffled response.

"Kelly," Casey climbed on the edge of the bed and jerked the pillow away, "Why didn't you tell me about Hadley?"

"What was there to tell?" Kelly asked.

"Where'd you go yesterday?" Casey wanted to know.

Kelly sighed and folded his arms under his head, "The prison called me. I was the last person to visit him, his family won't claim his body, they haven't had anything to do with him since he got arrested."

Casey's eyes doubled in size. "My God, Kelly, you should've told me. You shouldn't have gone out there alone."

"He's dead, what can he do to me?" Kelly replied dryly.

Casey didn't say anything for a minute, then he asked Kelly, "What happened?"

"The coroner said he had a brain tumor, that he'd had it for years, that it could explain why he did the things he did," Kelly answered, not wanting to burden anybody else with this but needing to tell _somebody_ else or he thought he'd go crazy.

"Kelly..."

"I could never figure it out, you know?" Kelly punched the pillow under his head then flipped over onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. "He was one of us for years, and then one day out of the blue he's attacking Mills, and he gets thrown out, then he's setting fires and coming after me...it never made any sense. None of it...how does somebody turn like that overnight? The answer is they can't, he would've had to have been that way for years for it to make any sense...and it didn't make sense, something was always wrong about it."

"What?" Casey asked. There was a _lot_ wrong with what went down with Hadley and Mills years ago, but he wanted to hear what was on Kelly's mind.

"Matt," Kelly looked at him, "Who's the _only_ one at 51 that could _never_ be fooled about who was trustworthy?"

Casey thought, and he wracked his brain, and he wasn't sure if he actually knew the answer or not.

"Pouch."

Casey looked down at Kelly with a confused expression. Kelly was adamant, "What is it people say, that dogs have a sixth sense about who to trust, who's good, who's not...Pouch _never_ changed towards Hadley, she liked him as much as the rest of us, if he had _always_ been that way, she would've known something was up."

Casey shrugged helplessly, he actually didn't know a whole lot about dogs but he was willing to take Kelly's word for it.

"That night when it all started, she didn't have a care in the world...if he had always been this closet arsonist, shouldn't she have been able to pick up on _something_ wrong with him?" Kelly asked.

"I don't know, maybe," Matt replied.

"What if..." the words weren't coming easily to Kelly now but he kept on, "what if this whole time, it wasn't actually his fault?"

"Kelly," Casey shook his head helplessly. "I'm not a doctor, and I don't know much about brain tumors, but I don't think they can change a person _that_ much."

"But we don't know, what if it's true?" Kelly asked. "The medical examiner said he'd had it for years..._how_ did that go unnoticed during routine exams? Somebody somewhere had to have realized that _something_ was wrong, why didn't anybody do anything?"

"Kelly, it's all just guesswork," Casey tried to calm him down, "We don't know how long Hadley had the tumor, or what if any effect it had on him."

"But what if it's true, Matt?" There was more than just a hint of fear in Kelly's voice as he spoke, though fear from what, Casey wasn't sure, whether Kelly was personally kicking himself for missing something, or maybe fear that everything that happened could've been prevented if Hadley had been diagnosed early on and could be treated, or maybe fear of how everybody had, justifiably though, blamed Hadley for the destruction he caused, only for the truth to be that he hadn't been able to help himself. Casey wasn't sure which one it was, but he knew his best friend and he knew that Kelly was blaming himself for somehow not knowing something that apparently _nobody_ actually knew until Kevin Hadley was already dead.

"What if nothing that we went through had to have happened, if the doctors could've helped him?" Kelly wondered.

"Nobody will ever know if that's true or not, Kelly," Casey said. "For whatever reason, nobody caught this, but it doesn't change what Hadley did. It doesn't make him less responsible."

Kelly looked at him and said distantly, "The guy told me that it's possible Hadley would've _known_ what he was doing was wrong but he wouldn't have been able to stop himself. Can you imagine a fate like that? _Knowing_ but you can't do anything about it?"

Casey knew there wasn't anything he could say that could convince Kelly otherwise. He couldn't invest too much belief in this theory but he could see Kelly was scrambling for some logical explanation to make sense of how things had gone so wrong with a member of their house family, one of _his_ men on Squad who _he_ was in charge of, who had been with them for so many years. It didn't make any sense at the time and it still didn't now, and it was obvious this was eating at Kelly, and very likely _had_ been ever since Hadley was arrested.

And Casey knew that Kelly couldn't leave things as they were.

"What did you do, Kelly?" he asked.

Kelly looked at him and shook his head, "His own family won't come near him...even with everything that he did, I just can't...I can't let them bury him in an unmarked grave in some potter's field, Casey, I just can't, I know it doesn't make any sense-"

"No," Casey shook his head, "it makes perfect sense, Kelly..."

It did, it really did. Maybe not to anybody else from Firehouse 51, but it made sense to Casey. No matter what Hadley had done, in Kelly's mind it was still one of his men, and he still felt responsible. Kelly could be an idiot about a lot of things but he never let anything stand in the way of doing what he thought was right, even, Casey knew, if that meant he'd be standing alone at the funeral of the man who tried to kill him. Even if it meant everybody else thought he'd lost his damn mind and wanted nothing to do with it, even that wouldn't be enough to deter him.

"I'll help you make the arrangements," Casey told him.

"I can't ask you to do that," Kelly said.

"You're not, I'm offering," Casey replied, "I'll be with you at the funeral. Nobody's going to turn out for Hadley, but I'm going to be there for _you_."

Kelly slowly took this information in, from the expression on his face, he looked like his head was about to explode.

"You get some sleep," Casey told him as he drew the covers up on him, "I'm going to call Boden and tell him we're both sick and need to sit this shift out. We'll get this figured out, Kelly."

* * *

"Chief, I'm guessing you heard about Hadley," Casey said as he called Boden from the kitchen where Kelly wouldn't hear him.

"I did, how's Severide taking the news?"

"Not well, Chief, he went up to the prison to see the body...he found out Hadley had a brain tumor and he's blaming himself that nobody knew it, he thinks that that's why Hadley became an arsonist."

"I sincerely doubt that, but it's not for me to say," Wallace responded.

"Kelly's going to handle the funeral arrangements, he's really shaken up right now...he's in no condition to work today, and to be perfectly honestly, I don't feel safe leaving him alone."

"Understood," Boden told the lieutenant, "I'll call in a replacement for Severide and Herrmann can fill in as acting lieutenant for you. Keep me updated how he's doing."

"Copy that, Chief," Casey said. "I know nobody's going to come to the services, but Kelly has it in his head this is something he has to do, so I'm standing by him. I think right now it's vital he knows he's not alone."

"I agree," Wallace remarked, "you're a good man, Casey, a good friend, exactly what Severide needs right now."

Casey felt a small flush running through his cheeks as he responded, "I'm not sure about that, Chief, but I'm trying. I've never seen Kelly this shaken up about anything before."

"It's always hard to realize you were wrong about people," Boden told him, "especially people you depend on to help save lives."

Casey sighed. "He's looking for something that can make any sense out of what happened with Hadley, I know he's not going to find it, but I know it won't do any good to tell him that."

He would swear he could almost hear Boden nodding. "Let Kelly bury Hadley, give him some time to work through his demons, he'll be alright."

"I hope so, Chief, I'm worried about him," Casey said.

* * *

Casey entered the living room and paused as he saw Severide sitting on the couch with one foot on the floor and the other leg stretched across two cushions, his head was down, his eyes were closed, the bridge of his nose was pinched between two fingers and he sighed very slowly.

"You okay?" Casey asked.

Kelly opened his eyes and sat up and looked at Casey, "Yeah, fine."

It had been the day of Hadley's funeral. Kelly had made some basic arrangements, a basic casket and a plot in a nearby cemetery, nothing had been real fancy, the headstone for his grave only covered the basics, name, date of birth and date of death, no final words, no R.I.P, no epitaph, nothing. They'd really expected for nobody to show up, so they'd both been surprised when the guys from Squad, and Truck, and Boden, all showed up for the service. They'd turned out for the funeral and they stood tall, not for Hadley, even though he had been one of theirs, but to show their support to Severide, who seemed to need it so much right now.

Now, the funeral had been over hours ago and Hadley was in the ground where he belonged. Everybody had gone back to their own homes and their own lives, but Severide still had notable trouble coming to terms with what had happened.

"Can I sit down?" Casey asked.

"Huh? Oh, sorry," Kelly moved over on the couch. Casey sat down beside him.

"It was a good thing you did, Kelly." Casey wasn't sure he actually believed it, but he hoped it gave Kelly some closure.

Kelly looked towards the floor and didn't move for a minute, then out of nowhere he said to Matt, "I want you to do something for me...if, one day, I start acting...different...weird...I mean _really_ weird...take me to the hospital, have them do a brain scan."

"Kelly, you don't think that you'd-"

"I don't know...it's possible...and if it would happen...I don't want to wind up like Hadley...I want to find out as early as possible so I've got a fighting chance."

Kelly was just about shaking as he spoke. Casey slung an arm around Kelly's shoulders and pulled his friend against him and told him, "Kelly, what happened to Hadley isn't going to happen to you."

"You don't know that," Severide responded, "I hope not...I never had to think about it before...now..."

"You got scared," Casey said, "when you found out it could actually happen to somebody from our House, you got scared."

"Of course I did...can you imagine how horrible that would be?" Kelly asked. "I don't want that to happen to me, Matt."

"I know," Casey told him, "it won't."

"How do you know?"

"No tumor would come within a hundred miles of you, you'd scare it to death with the way you live," Casey tried to lighten the mood, but it didn't work.

"Hadley should've died in the fire," Kelly said quietly.

"What?" Casey wasn't sure he'd heard right.

"He should've died when he tried to kill me and he caught on fire," Kelly said, louder now, "I saw him in the prison...his whole body was scarred...nobody knows how bad burns are better than firemen, even with everything he did to us, I wouldn't wish that fate on my worst enemy."

"Obviously," Casey replied. "Kelly, whatever did or didn't happen to Hadley wasn't your fault, you're not responsible."

Kelly looked straight ahead at the wall for a minute, before turning to ask Casey, "So why don't I believe that?"

"Because," Casey answered slowly, "You take responsibility for all the men on your company, and you can't accept that this was beyond your control. You think you can fix anything, Kelly, and the truth is sometimes you just can't."

Kelly seemed to draw into himself and said in a low, almost broken voice, "I just don't get it, Casey...I just don't get it."

"I know," Matt told him. "Have you eaten today?"

"I'm not hungry," Kelly shook his head.

"You need to eat, Kelly," Casey stood up from the couch and went to the kitchen.

* * *

The next couple days passed slowly, Kelly ate little and mainly just sat on the couch watching TV though Casey knew he wasn't actually _watching_ anything, he was just avoiding having to see people and talk to anyone. Casey stayed close by but kept his distance and gave Kelly room to breathe. By next shift Kelly went back with Matt, Casey wasn't sure it was a good idea but figured they could all keep a close enough eye on Kelly that if anything happened they could send him home quickly enough that things didn't get worse.

Kelly was not in a particularly talkative mood on shift and just focused on the jobs at hand when the calls came in. He seemed able to do his job as well as he always did, and for the time being that was what Boden paid attention to. Casey kept a silent vigil for any signs of something wrong, and through the day he was relieved that he didn't pick up on any, every so often he looked at the time and silently counted down how many more hours until they could go home. First day back after anything major was always hard, he was sure Kelly would be more like his old self by next shift once he'd had a couple more days to deal with everything.

That night there was a lull between the calls and everybody was trying to squeeze in whatever amount of sleep they could get because they had to go out again. Casey went to Kelly's quarters and opened the door and poked his head in. He could tell from the sound of Severide's breathing that he wasn't asleep.

"How're you holding up?" he inquired.

"Okay," Kelly answered quietly.

Casey shut the door behind him and walked over to the bunk.

"What're you doing here?" Kelly asked.

"Just thought I'd check in."

"You can't stay here, Matt."

"I know, just wanted to know how you were doing," Casey replied as he sat on the edge of the bed.

Kelly nodded, "I'm sorry about the last few days."

"I get it, Kelly," Matt told him, "but the only thing I'm focused on is that _you're_ alright."

"I know, and I am...at least I think I am..."

"Why did the prison call _you_, Kelly?"

Severide shrugged, "I don't know...you'd think they wouldn't care what happened to the inmates after they die...but it's like they wanted _somebody_ to claim the body."

Casey was quiet for a minute, then finally he told Kelly, "If it had been me in your place, I don't know that I could've done it."

"I wasn't sure I could either," Kelly answered, "but for some reason I just couldn't let them put him in an unmarked grave somewhere...he _was_ one of mine...I might've helped put him there...but I just couldn't _leave_ him there."

Casey leaned over and told Severide quietly, "You're a good man." He leaned down and lightly kissed Kelly on the forehead, if the Squad lieutenant cared or even noticed, he gave no indication either way. Casey stood up and said as he headed to the door, "Let's hope the bells don't go off, and I'll see you in the morning."

"Thanks, Casey."

"Goodnight, Kelly," Matt said as he pulled the door shut behind him.


End file.
